Quote

True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.

Thomas Carlyle

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Thomas Carlyle
Age: 85 †
Born: 1795
Born: December 4
Died: 1881
Died: February 5
Essayist
Historian
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Mathematician
Novelist
Philosopher
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Philosopher of Chelsea
Lying
Laughter
Happiness
Deeper
True
Essence
Stills
Spring
Transcendentalism
Still
Humor
Springs
Heart
Joy
Smiles
Love
Issues
Cute
Head
Contempt

More quotes by Thomas Carlyle

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The hell of these days is the fear of not getting along, especially of not making money.
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Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable barrier, and the sacred air-cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay hamlets of reality and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free.
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We have not the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness.
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Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky but the stars are there and will reappear.
Thomas Carlyle
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If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect there is more virtue in it that he himself is aware of.
Thomas Carlyle
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The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal work it out therefrom, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself.
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Speech is great, but silence is greater.
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A thought once awakened does not again slumber.
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Tell a person they are brave and you help them become so.
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Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.
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Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day?
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Force, force, everywhere force we ourselves a mysterious force in the centre of that. There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it: how else could it rot? [As used in his time, by the word force, Carlyle means energy.]
Thomas Carlyle
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Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament but, in the Reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.
Thomas Carlyle
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A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner.
Thomas Carlyle
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I have seen gleams in the face and eyes of the man that have let you look into a higher country.
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The true epic of our times is not Arm's and the Man, but Tools and the Man--an infinitely wider kind of epic.
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The first sin in our universe was Lucifer's self conceit.
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What you see, but can't see over is as good as infinite.
Thomas Carlyle
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Goethe's devil is a cultivated personage and acquainted with the modern sciences sneers at witchcraft and the black art even while employing them, and doubts most things, nay, half disbelieves even his own existence.
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Little other than a red tape Talking-machine, and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence.
Thomas Carlyle